This episode with my friend Kaitlin Brazil started out as a conversation in the Instagram DM's, and quickly turned into "THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW". I've known Kaitlin for years, and she always has a beautiful way of bringing me back to seeing the humanity in people. Especially people on the internet who piss me off. Our DM convo started with a few of us going off about people who promote an all meat diet. And quickly evolved into Kaitlin sharing a bit about her personal health journey. Let's just say by the end of the conversation, I had so much more empathy for people who are navigating this sort of thing, and helped me to release some of the anger that I'd been holding on to since my last horrah with diet culture (paleo) in 2016. Please note: this episode is a candid conversation around our own lived experiences and is not meant to be a substitute for medical advice.
On this episode we talk about:
- Who Kaitlin is, and how and why she no longer works in the online fitness and anti-diet space.
- How to push back against diet culture while navigating a chronic illness.
- Why common advice around intuitive eating doesn't always work for everyone.
- How trauma affects the way you eat.
- How hard it can be when you're not getting answers from conventional medicine and what draws people to try things that seem really out there.
- The very real fear of judgement when it comes to exploring alternative health options when many people see those sorts of things as "diet culture".
- Why we need to stop making assumptions about people based on one aspect of their life or personality.
- How to walk the fine line of caring for your health without getting sucked into quackery and dogmatic approaches.
- The problem with applying health advice that wasn't meant for you.
- Why some people get drawn to extreme styles of eating.
- The fact that if I was dealing with a chronic illness and didn't get answers, I could see myself being convinced to eat nothing but shit sandwiches if people told me it would heal me.
- So many other good things!